Jean-Michel Jarre urges European Parliament to close loopholes in copyright law

The current proposals have been called “the most important copyright reforms of the last 20 years in Europe.”

Jean-Michel Jarre has signed an open letter to European Parliament backing amendments to copyright law.

Jarre is the president of CISAC, an international conglomerate of performing rights organisations aiming to close copyright loopholes in a directive currently being drafted by the European Parliament. The aim is to strengthen the position of copyright holders negotiating licensing deals with large-scale digital platforms like YouTube and Spotify. The current law allows streaming services to pay lower royalties in the EU than other territories, which the CISAC has called “a major problem… holding back our sector and jeopardising future sustainability.”

The open letter deems the current proposals “the most important copyright reforms of the last 20 years in Europe.” The letter continues: “Europe now has a chance to address the ‘transfer of value’ or ‘value gap’ which is caused by loopholes in the law allowing some of the world’s largest digital platforms to deny fair remuneration to millions of creators. To do this effectively, it is essential for the legislation to ensure fair remuneration by user uploaded content platforms such as YouTube. EU law should not be a shield to allow such platforms to make vast revenues from creative works while not fairly rewarding the creators.”